The Braves Collapse Is Not Nearly As Painful As Other Past Failures

This season, I followed a Braves team that wasn't very good, yet somehow, they were pulling away with the Wild Card lead. I could never quite put my finger on it. How in the world were they 10 1/2 games ahead of the Cardinals at one point? It seemed like every time I watched them or listened to a game, they were doing something ridiculously bad. They lost some painful games this year, yet the stats were showing some fantastic seasons for some players.

The only problem is...when those players had a bad game, it cost them. Being a well-rounded team means that you can make a couple of mistakes here and there and it won't cost you the game seemingly every time. It means, if your pitchers are having a bad game, your offense has the ability to pick them up, and vice-versa. The Braves never had an offense that clicked, because there were too many black holes in the lineup.

Even with the Wild Card lead, I never really believed in this team. The weaknesses were too glaring. At the beginning of the season, the leadoff man was Nate McLouth, and when he got hurt, it turned into Jordan Schafer. Neither of those guys is any good. Then the Braves got Michael Bourn, who pretty much slumped after the trade, although he was much better than those other two guys.

Then the 2nd spot was filled most of the year by Martin Prado, who for the past couple of years could be depended upon to bat around .300. He batted around .260 this year. And since he never walks, that hurts.

Chipper Jones is, of course, well past his prime. He had a decent year for someone his age and constantly injured. But he was being relied upon to be the team's #3 hitter. And I don't care what sabermetrics might say about Chipper, this is a case where the human eye was better than the advanced stats. He never could really be a #3 hitter this year, and probably never again.

Dan Uggla took an entire half of the season to get right. When he did, he was awesome. Unfortunately, nearly everybody else on the team tanked once he got hot.

Brian McCann must have been severely sidetracked by his injury after the All-Star Break. You could depend on McCann almost daily to do something great. But after he got off the disabled list, he was pretty useless the rest of the year.

Freddie Freeman had a great rookie season, and unfortunately, his production, which would be a great compliment to an awesome offense, was relied upon to be one of the main sources. You can't rely on a 21-year-old who is just learning the ins and outs of the majors be your top offensive producer, even if he's having a great season for a rookie.

Jason Heyward was so bad this year, people started remembering the types of things said about Jeff Francoeur during his stay in Atlanta. Heyward was the biggest disappointment of the year, and hurt the offense more than any one person, right alongside Prado. The Braves were relying on Prado to stay the course and for Heyward to get better in his second season. And they got worse, which made them unfortunate, almost automatic, outs.

Alex Gonzalez was a black hole in the lineup from the start. But his bad numbers at the plate only became magnified as the Braves looked for someone to start hitting. I think everyone was OK with Gonzalez' offensive production, as long as the other guys did what they were supposed to do. They didn't, so the presence of Alex Gonzalez at the plate was always a painful sight because now, his lack of production just compounded the other lack of production the lineup was getting.

I like to think in these terms--the Braves had very little room for error when it came to scoring runs, and while, rightfully so, the team was criticized for being unable to get hits with runners in scoring position, it seemed like so many times, they needed that hit with two outs. Since on average a batter is not going to get a hit somewhere over 70% of the time, the odds were always against them.

The pitching kept them winning games for much of the first half, and that had to do with solid presences Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens, both who went down shortly after the All Star Break along with seemingly everyone else. With Hanson and Jurrjens unable to put in solid work, the Braves had Tim Hudson, rookie Brandon Beachy (who began to lose it in the second half), the god-awful Derek Lowe (and somehow, the saber stats supported him being just as good a pitcher as Hudson, which...I think more data is needed), and a triumvirate of rookie pitchers who were not ready to be in the majors until 2012 or 2013: Julio Teheran, Randall Delgado, and Mike Minor.

With all this inexperience and worn-down veterans, the bullpen was used a lot. Unhittable pitchers like Johnny Venters and Craig Kimbrel suddenly became wild and hittable towards the end of the season. It would not shock me if I found out Venters needed surgery after this season. The guy was ridiculous all year, and there should have been some regression in his stats, but not to the point where he became absolutely frightening to watch later in the season, walking guys and giving up solid hits. I worry about Venters a bunch.

Venters and Kimbrel each gave up games in September that had they been played in June, would have never happened.

There were just too many holes in this team, and the prospect of going to the playoffs with this bunch was scary. I didn't think they had a chance to make it past the first round, and when the collapse began, I wondered if it wouldn't just be better for baseball that this team didn't make it anyway. They were not going to be a tough first round opponent throwing Hudson, Beachy, and Lowe against any of the playoff pitching staffs. And with this offense, even if they made it past the first round and into the NLCS, it would likely be against Philly, and Philly is way too much of a beast for Atlanta. Halladay, Lee, and Hamels would have carved this team up quickly. Another playoff loss was inevitable. Collapse or no, this team wasn't going to win the World Series.

So when the analysts and the sports pundits talk about "worst collapse" and how that's so bad that they missed the playoffs, I think it's an overblown story. Make the playoffs, not make the playoffs, this team was embarrassing for many reasons, and they were not going to be champions. Manager Fredi Gonzalez, chided by many this season and many times referred to as "Frediot," certainly wasn't going to be the balm this team needed. Just too many bone-headed mistakes. But his bad decisions were magnified mainly because of the team that was on the field. As I was saying before, good teams can overcome mistakes. When Gonzalez made one, it lost the game. When Charlie Manuel in Philly makes one, that team finds a way to blur it out.

Plus, I don't know what this idea was that Gonzalez is just like Bobby Cox. In what way? Maybe philosophy, maybe "player's manager," but not very fiery. I wished so many times he would race out of the dugout and bark at an umpire, but it looked like Gonzalez was always worried that his mom was in the stands or something and just took the "if you have nothing positive to say, then don't say anything at all," approach to leading the team.

The Braves collapse...it was inevitable. I was resigned to it about a month ago, the last time they got swept by Philly and had an 8-game lead in the Wild Card. It's not worse than Jim Leyritz in 1996 or Ed Sprague in 1992, or Kirby Puckett in 1991. It just doesn't have the same feel. I saw it coming and braced for it, and I feel a little relieved I won't have to see this team in the playoffs. Also, seeing the Rays win in the way they did, combined with the way the Red Sox lost their game, was the type of thing that made me love baseball in the first place. When I saw that, I was totally at peace that the Braves had come up short, yet again.

The Decline of Sports

Sports aren't going anywhere, it's just that they're not immune to the pressures that every business faces, although generally facing them well off the front pages. Money drives everything, and the game is often played on the outskirts of legality to make more of it. The NBA tries to exploit their refs in quasi-legal ways to maximise profits, and it surprises no one.

The NBA has approached this in the dumbest way possible, the one that everybody can see. And MLB isn't much better by allowing steroids for so long. Issues that all can see will eventually be found out. Best to let players take uppers or something to increase their energy (no, I'm not endorsing that). The NFL is okay for now because steroid bodies can be hidden by the uniforms, but if it weren't for that we'd have the same issues we have elsewhere.

As an aside, I continue to believe that the much maligned Tour de France is the cleanest pro sport in the world because they take drug use seriously and don't just sweep away their issues. Good for them.

But no, the end of sports will never come, as there will always be people like me suiting up to play in adult leagues every weekend. Professional sports are in trouble, real trouble, and they need to face up to this, but something will be around. In what form?

Even if one of the major sports leagues fail, another league will take its place because there is too much money to be made. But, is there a chance that some element of professional "wrestling" will come into sports? Has that already happened in the NBA? I believe it has. I hate to say it, but everything in the book I linked to rang true. We've entered an age of sports as entertainment, and not fully sports.

Don't Forget Baseball Fans!

When A-Rod was caught, he was only one of 104! There's more to come!

In related news, my attempt to follow baseball again has largely fizzled out.

A-Roid!

I think nearly all of the star baseball players of the era in which I grew to love baseball are now tainted. I saw a random comment stating that now, no one compares to Ken Griffey, Jr. in the past 20 years because everyone else has the steroid shadow. Hard not to agree. I grew up loving Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson, who were all in the latter stages of their career, but all the guys who became prominent in the late eighties like Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, and Canseco are tainted. Unfortunately we'll never know exactly how long all of these guys took the drugs, because these are all good players without the steroids.

Now with A-Rod being yet another, seemingly final, piece in this steroid era, it's almost like nothing I've watched is real anymore.

So now, we hope Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard have managed to stay clean.

So I despise celebrity culture, but I read Deadspin almost every day. Does that make me a hypocrite? A typical male? Enlightened? Discuss.

Instead of watching Palin-Biden last night, I watched Chelsea-Man U. Seemed a better fare.

I'm listening to all the songs on my ipod that I haven't listened to in the last three years. Man, is there a lot of Pink Floyd.

Hey Cubs: when you still believe in the curse, you are cursed. When you stop believing in the curse, you are not cursed. So stop having priests bless your dugout and walking a billy goat around the damn park!

The Shift; And Hoping for Twins-Rays ALDS

After the final game of the season, the White Sox have to play one more game to try to tie the Twins for the AL Central and force a one-game playoff. I hope it never comes to that, but if it does, I want the Twins to advance. It would be Twins-Rays, two teams discussed concerning contraction a few years ago. Of course, should Tampa Bay not support the Rays during the playoffs, as they didn't during the season, they don't deserve that team (but it should go somewhere else that will appreciate them, not just fold altogether). They don't really deserve them anyway; they're probably like Marlins fans and will come out for the playoffs, but once the regular season begins next year, World Series or not, they probably still won't come out to games.

The Mets missed the playoffs on the last day of the season again. There won't be postseason baseball in New York for the first time in 14 years. I'm a little conflicted in that I would like the playoff atmosphere back after the Giants Super Bowl run earlier, but I'm really glad that the overpriced Yankees missed out...badly. As a Braves fan I'm contractually obligated to despise the Mets, but I opt out of this clause once the Braves are out of it.

It's absolutely no secret what the Mets need next year: starters who can go at least 7 innings (aside from Johan Santana, who should win the Cy Young but won't because of the over-emphasis of wins by baseball writers), and a more reliable bullpen. I think some of their bullpen guys are decent but they were overworked having to come in early all year for guys like Pedro Martinez, who should retire. Plus, most of their bullpen guys could only get one side of the plate out: right could only face right, left against left, or else they got pounded.

And the Mets bring up a pet peeve I have about certain batters in this league. And I point specifically to Carlos Delgado. Delgado had an amazing season after nearly being run out of town early on. But Delgado is one of the handful of left-handed sluggers in which teams employ a "shift" to defend them. The third baseman plays shortstop, the SS, at 2nd, the 2B in the shallow part of the outfield between the SS and 1B. I believe I first saw this with Barry Bonds, and you see it with Ryan Howard as well. The upshot is that they are dead-pull hitters when it comes to non-HR fare, and any ball they hit on the ground is going to the right side of the infield.

Now, if these batters had the inclination, they could serve the ball into left field, with no one there to defend it, and not make an out. Many will say, "Well, these guys are paid to hit homers, not singles, so the opposing team will take it as a victory that the batter only hit a single." I am in agreement for the most part, for most of the season I'm with that argument. In an eventual 7-6 Mets win against the Cubs, not hitting to the opposite field cost the Mets a huge 8th inning. Down 6-4, with a runner on first, Delgado hit into the shift and into a double play. The following batters would go on to tie the game, but had Delgado used the opposite field, the game would have been in hand before the 9th. It might have been a blowout by then.

I saw Barry Bonds basically beat the Braves using the opposite field a few years ago. The Braves employed the shift, and Bonds bunted a double. The Giants then played small ball to score the winning run. With two outs, such a play is asinine. Your slugger should try to kill it. But with no outs, especially with men on base, the other team is just giving you a free pass, you should take it. Especially since most of the time, a batter like Delgado has someone good hitting behind him. In this case, the Mets had Carlos Beltran. Not taking the free single (or even a double) is a bit selfish.

Situational hitting definitely sunk the Mets as well this season. Opportunities and clear advantages are rare, so take them.

Baseball Crazy Good Last Night

We had the Mets come back from 6-3 to beat the Cubs in the 9th inning and rain, 7-6, pulling them to within a game of the NL East leading Phillies and keeping them at least tied for the Wild Card.

Then we had the Brewers win on a walk-off grand slam, 5-1, and keep a tie with the Mets in the Wild Card.

And the Twins came back from 6-1 to beat the Chicago White Sox in the bottom of the ninth, 7-6, taking a 1/2 game lead in the AL Central after completing a sweep.

3 delirious crowds as the home team won on their final at-bat. We can only hope the postseason will be like this.

Yankee Stadium

Seriously, why are they tearing down Yankee Stadium? Another historical venue bites the dust to make more money, pricing out the real fans. The new stadium will have higher prices and fewer seats. I wish sports weren't so popular. Here's a great article questioning the teardown, which I agree with. When you price out your best fans, the casual fans eventually get less interested. It's going to come crashing down someday.

Also, I just think it's bad juju to tear down the stadium where you've had your best years to hopefully get some more cash. It hasn't done the Reds any good.

The Loss Column

As baseball winds down, the usual ifs come into play as to who will win the Wild Card and the division, and it gives us The Magic Number, a nifty way of figuring out a combination of wins and other teams' losses that will clinch a playoff spot. But one area in which broadcasters and experts emphasize waaaaaaay too much is "the loss column."

The stress is upon the fact that a team cannot improve their station in the loss column. If you have 67 losses, then you cannot make it less than that. And if the team ahead of you has 65 losses, then the team ahead of you is 2 ahead in the loss column. There could not be a dumber emphasis in sports than this.

It's true that a team cannot make up their losses, but the team ahead of them can always falter. The emphasis on the loss column seems to suggest that a team in first place has a decent chance of running the table for the rest of the year.

The only day that the loss column matters is when it is mathematically impossible for a team that is ahead to lose enough games to fall from their spot. And this is what The Magic Number is for, and makes way more sense than all this putrid discussion of "the loss column." But watch any coverage of the pennant/wild card race and the day's games, someone will bring up that loss column like it is the end-all factor, when it is just a mere piece to the puzzle.

Rockies Going to World Series

Well, it was kinda hard drumming up any kind of excitement for two teams who don't have much baseball history, but the Colorado Rockies are a special team. They beat the Diamondbacks tonight, swept the series, went 7-0 in the NL Playoffs, are 21-1 in their last 22 games, and look absolutely unbeatable. They are a Wild Card team that was within one strike in the Brewers/Padres regular season series of not even being here.

Baseball purism is hard to defend in the face of a team like this. On one hand, you say, "Well, in past years, they wouldn't even be in the playoffs," but then, we'd be missing a team that got it all right at the end of the year and just can't be beat by any of the teams that are supposedly better than them, if you go merely by regular season record. Of course, every team in these NL playoffs were very close in those terms, anyway.

If the Indians happen to advance, as they are up 2-1 right now, I'm going to have a hard time rooting for the Rockies because I want the longest-drought team to win. The Indians haven't won since 1948. But really, a 7-game series is what you look for. The ALCS is far from over, though. And, we'll be sure to hear all about rust should that series go longer and the Rockies have to sit for 8 days while two other teams duke it out and play meaningful baseball. The baseball gods are fickle, of course. They don't care if you've gone 21-1, you could go 0-4 the next 4 games. Not likely with this team, but still.

If it does happen to be Indians/Rockies, expect a small story about the Broncos/Browns playoff games: "The Drive" and the Ernest Byner fumble, if these two cities once again play a meaningful postseason together.

Oh yeah. Life imitates art. I wonder how many people around the world were quoting The Simpsons when Rockies fans were booing Diamondback Eric Byrnes.

"Smithers, are they booing me?"

"No, they're saying Boo-urns, Boo-urns."

Burns asks the crowd, "Are you saying 'boo' or 'Boo-urns?" And the crowd boos.

And then Hans Moleman says, "I was saying Boo-urns!"

Nice.

Baseball!

The playoffs have begun today, and despite the fact that the Braves didn't make it, I'm very excited about the postseason.

And then I turned to our old friends at The Electric Commentary, where there had been, much like our blog, a dearth of posting for awhile. But there were a few postings about baseball and sabermetrics, something I really love because it takes all the bullshit out of sports analysis. Many of the things I rail against, like momentum and experience and emotion as quantifiable factors that analysts get caught up in, are disproved regularly by sabermetrics.

The EC also pointed me to this humorous and well-thought-out site, and I think my friend Mike will enjoy this title: Fire Joe Morgan.

Just adding my two cents to The EC, who have discussed the idea that the closer (i.e., supposedly your best pitcher) should come in during the worst situations, not just when he can pad his stats with saves, there's something else in baseball that bothers me that managers don't do more often.

Charlie Manuel took out starter Adam Eaton early in game 161, when the Phillies needed to win to ensure that they would at least be tied with the Mets after game 162. They ended up losing the game, but it was the absolute right move. I've always felt when pitchers don't have it, they shouldn't be allowed to continue to pitch, no matter what your perception of the relievers are. The Mets' Willie Randolph chose not to do the same thing with Tom Glavine on the final game of the year in the 1st inning. Glavine should have been taken out as soon as he gave up 2 runs, but instead, he was only taken out after he had given up 5 (eventually 7 when all was said and done).

The relief situation in baseball needs to be addressed. I listened to many Braves games this year and Bobby Cox does this thing where, if the starting pitcher has a big lead after 7, no matter how well he's throwing, he takes the guy out and lets the relievers finish it off. To me, in a game like that, the starter should finish the game unless for some reason he just can't get anyone out. With all the talk about how the relief is used too much over a season, why use these guys in a game that has more or less been decided? Let the starter go the full 9 unless his arm is about to fall off. He's going to get 4 days rest, and you save the bullpen from extra innings.

I think I'd like to see a sabermetrics guy manage a team for once. Start with Bill James. There are some GMs I'm sure who would entertain the idea.